We won’t know till the end of this cycle how much mal-investment has occurred under the great monetary inflation which started in 2010. We may already suspect, though, that much of this will be in “big tech” and related fields. Any final reckoning should also include wider political and socio-economic damage not included in a narrow economic calculus. 

Historically, Thanksgiving has been a feast day during which Americans are called upon to thank the Lord for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us. Richard J. Maybury and Gary Galles both explain the economic lessons to glean from the experience of the Pilgrims and both note that the primary reason for God’s blessing them with relative prosperity after years of famine and hunger was a shift away from socialism and toward private property.

For decades in the United States, turkey has been the center of the Thanksgiving meal. Some eccentrics may offer other choices, such as roast beef or duck, but nowadays, it’s a sure bet that few households will be offering horse meat as one of Thursday’s featured dishes. 

Horse meat has largely disappeared from the Western diet, and not even our pets eat much horse anymore.

This clip from MSNBC’s Morning Joe went through my Facebook feed earlier, with the show’s panel pointing to the willingness of Alabama Republicans to vote for Roy Moore as an example of “extreme” tribalism that has taken over American politics. As Willie Geist put it:

If you’re willing to protect the tribe at the cost of a 14-year old girl, you need to re-evaluate yourself.

The Mises Institute is in high gear. Publications, students, scholars, conferences, seminars, media exposure, professorships: all are soaring to new heights. Despite some dire trends in the world, there’s great cause for optimism about the future of liberty.

It is our 35th year; how privileged we’ve been to work for the ideas of liberty, for libertarianism and the Austrian school. And how grateful we are for your help in making it possible. Of course, we can’t go forward without you.

In a piece recently published at The American Conservative entitled “Americans, We Aren’t So Tough, and It Shows” I discussed the way in which a confluence of factors such as the decay of the intermediary institutions of civil society and economic insecurity leads to individuals being vulnerable and anxious.

Legal trophy hunting creates an incentive for entrepreneurs to preserve endangered species since the trophy hunting industry makes these species valuable as  investments. The logic here is so apparent that even TruTV’s show “Adam Ruins Everything” — which is hardly a right-wing propaganda rag — has figured it out: